Huge aspirations

Architect unveils latest plan for 150-story Chicago Spire

March 27, 2007|By Chicago Tribune

Promising an iconic structure that would enhance Chicago's reputation as an architectural mecca, architect Santiago Calatrava on Monday unveiled an animated 360-degree view of a proposed downtown skyscraper that would be the nation's tallest building.

Gasps echoed through a standing-room audience at a meeting of the Grant Park Advisory Council as a swooping computer-generated perspective showed the proposed Chicago Spire from nearly every exterior angle. The video offered the most lifelike view yet of the 150-story condominium tower that would be built in the Streeterville neighborhood. It has undergone several major design changes since being announced almost two years ago.

Monday's design, which returns the building to the slender frame initially proposed, will be presented next month to city officials. Initially capped with a spire leading to a flat top, the current rendering has the building tapered to a rounded point that looks like a peeled banana.

The white structure, which twists like a drill bit from ground to sky, also was publicly represented for the first time by a 3-D model that sat at the head of a Symphony Center ballroom at Monday's meeting.

Although reaction was generally favorable, Streeterville residents expressed concern that the building will increase traffic, pollution and noise in their neighborhood.

Among them was Teddy Savas, who attended a similar Monday meeting of the Streeterville Organization of Active Residents.

"No one seems to pay attention to the residents of Streeterville," she said, pointing to several projects she said have increased traffic problems during the five years she has lived in the area. "I'd like to look up and see it shorter."

Aesthetically, the building is gorgeous, she said. But a shorter building would mean fewer units with fewer residents and fewer cars.

The plan also calls for construction of DuSable Park on an adjacent undeveloped plot just south of Navy Pier. Advocates have been trying to get the park built for decades.

Calatrava said the park and a planned plaza beside the skyscraper are important to the overall aesthetics of the project.

"We acknowledge the enormous importance of the park," he said. "We think it is an enormously beautiful situation."

Although funding is not in place, Calatrava promised that the building would become an iconic part of the Chicago skyline, creating a lighter and more fluid anchor beside the John Hancock Center and Sears Tower. He spoke of a sparkling addition to the lakeshore that reflects the afternoon and morning light.

The issue of funding the building was not addressed Monday.

"I'm completely confident that it will be built," he said. "People will come to Chicago in 300 or 400 years to see architecture of the 20th and 21st Century."

During the Streeterville meeting, outgoing Ald. Burton Natarus (42nd) urged residents to support the project, drawing laughs when he joked that Wisconsin might inherit the towering spire should Chicago reject the plan.

Afterward, residents Sharon Davidson and her husband, Tom, dismissed traffic fears and said the building can only improve the lakefront.

"We don't want them to build it in Milwaukee," Tom Davidson said. "That would be a shame."

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A closer look

Slated to house about 1,200 high-priced condominiums, the Chicago Spire would sit on a now-vacant site west of Lake Shore Drive along two-lane East North Water Street. The building would have 1,350 underground parking spaces and several floors of amenities for residents, but no public space.